Dear Parents,
     Happy Thursday!!  It has been a short week and definitely feels like it.  The students came back Tuesday and actually did a very good job returning.  They were not as chatty as they normally are coming off of a weekend and especially a long one.  They are really getting the hang of using their time wisely.  I am super proud of them.  They really work hard to be sure to limit the amount of homework they have.  That is exactly what I want them to do because the amount of work may pick up a little bit and I want them to be used to working hard at completing it.  Your kids are growing up!!  

Language Arts -  This week we are reading a play called The Power of W.O.W.  It is a story that kind of is a spin off of last week's story.  In Dallas, Texas there is a neighborhood that is too far from the library so a bookmobile comes to the neighborhood each week.  It was a trial program and the funds ran out.   The kids who utilize and benefit from the bookmobile decide they want to do something to help.  They organize a car wash to raise money.  A TV crew shows up and airs the story, and the car wash becomes very busy plus some very generous donors step in a donate and save the bookmobile.  It is a great story with a good lesson for the students.  It is written as a screen play so there are parts to be read.  We read it as whole class on Tuesday and discussed some.  They will read in small groups and then again in large group before Friday's test.  In grammar we are talking about sentences, sentence fragments, and run-on sentences.  The spelling list this week was short o and long o words.  The end of the week assessment will be tomorrow!

Math -  We have been working on rounding numbers.  This skill can be very difficult for 4th graders when you look at what we are doing.  We are rounding very large numbers.  These numbers are larger than what they have seen or worked with before.  It can get confusing for them. The rest of this week will focus on renaming numbers.  looking at the number 60 as 6 tens and the number 1,500 and 15 hundreds.  After this lesson the rest of the chapter is review.  It will cover addition and subtraction which we will cover rather quickly  because it is review for them.  Then we can finish chapter 1 and move on to chapter 2.  Our biggest chapters will be those on multiplication and division.  These are the two content areas we will spend the most time on.  

Social Studies -  This week we have been working on the Bill of Rights.  The students were grouped and given some amendments to make posters about.  They then shared the posters with the class so all could hear about the first 10 amendments to our Constitution.  I will hang these posters in the hall for all to see. We tried to make them kid friendly.  I challenge all of you to look up the Bill of Rights.  There are a few that are difficult to understand the way they written let alone try to get the kids to understand them.  Anything dealing with court cases was hard.  I feel like the ones we are all familiar with the students are now familiar with and will remember.  Amendment 1 &2 for sure, jury trial, and the one on search warrants they may remember.  I have always talked briefly about the Bill of Rights but this year I wanted to try this activity to dig deeper.  We have one more lesson in this chapter then we will take our first test!  

We are working hard every day.  I just want to point our again how proud I am of these kids. They are adjusting to the new environment pretty well.  I am very routine with some of the things I do in my classroom, which helps.  Learning to use time wisely is one of the hardest things to get them used to.  We are getting there!  Once we get the routine down, I will add a little more to their plate, NOT much but I will begin to need to keep them busy.  Once they figure out how to get work done then it gives them a little more free time which they don't know how to handle yet.  I am  very big on reading a book and not drawing or making items out of paper.  Some of you have seen the paper items come home, because I have made them take them home.  I will begin pressuring for more reading. 

Have a great weekend!   I have a volleyball tournament, run to Des Moines to finish Homecoming shopping and the St. Malachy Color Run!  It is a busy weekend for me!!

God Bless,
Mrs. Sickels